THE NE,W YORKER In my plays, I try to remove the scene from the imme- diate, to surround It with allusions to long stretches of tIme and remote places I break all the rules There's no suspense in "Our Town." You know what's gOIng to happen. I want to buy some postcards. ( Stop \ at postcard counter to purchase cards of Bur- gundian alahaster relief, fifteenth centur)', and Pz- casso's "Dog and Cock," 1921) So man y people write every day. Schoolchil- dren wrIte and ask questions like "Do you use religion?" I answer on these cards. I never reread myoId plays. I'm often up at dawn and Into town for breakfast, at a cafeteria right across from the Gallery. I must live near a great library, and Yale has a great library. You might say that I am a lazy loafer without an idle minute It was once sug- gested that my tombstone read, "Here Lies one who tried to be obliging." The Germans heard of this and got it all mixed up, made It grandiose, and, to my horror, translated it, "Here lies one who tried to help mankind." We're off to the campus. The day is beautiful, the sky is blue, the air is balmy. Why work? Why work today? We'll walk-a lazy loafer wIthout an idle minute I J\ ) ,: . . "* M ) . ;." ...x: . 35 \ I... ,"' .... . .\ ., -", Ä- . ,.. '" " "\ \ \ .. II . Wi- "' ,. -= ......,..,. j. \, --- ), -./. .H' '^ or or'"" \ ' .. .... "'" '" N'^ J\ . '\ ( \\ I "'-.. . , .. . .". n.-.:'.. - "Did you hear about poor Roy? He was going through the Saint Lawrence Seaway and got squashed in the Ezsenhower Lo k.)' III MR WILDER (houncing across cam- pus, past students in shzrtsleeves, tosszng halls around): Look at those urchins! \\Then my generatIon was here, when we were wormies, there was a Golden Age of Yale that we looked back on. Steve Benét and I lived there, In Con- necticut Hall. Look at the statue of Nathan Hale all tied up and ready to be hanged' And now these urchins look up to people like me as representIng the Golden Age. The perfume of rev- erence IS now In evidence when my generation crosses the campus. When I studied in Rome, after college, I would go out and do archeological dig- ging-cruder methods than today- and wherever I dug down, I found somethIng. A street, say, where human beings had walked and talked and sung. It affected m} life. I can't go through Times Square today wIthout thInking that someone will come along someday and all will be quiet and still, and he . . will dig down and down, and he will say, "Why, there appears to have been some activity here once! " Come see my ThunderbIrd and my Noguchi IV MR. WILDER (whizzzng toward H amden, a short, happy Journev): I love my little Thunderbird My sister Isabel, who lives with me, and my lawyer are terrified of my driving. I'm very good, really, but they don't think I know how. They are comforted by the thought that the excellence of the machine compensates for the deficien- cies of the driver. I love the open road, the gas stations, the little towns, and the motels. I love the hushed elegance of the motels. (Turning up steep, winding road toward 5() Deepwood Drzve, his home ) We are approaching the house- the House the Bridge Built. The Bridge of San Luis Rey, that IS. I live on a heap of dIrt pushed down by an icecap from the North. Look at that odd red cliff there! I cal] it our Dolomite, and it has come all the way from the North on an icecap. (Boundzng out of car up winding rustic stairwaJ!, and znto dark wooden house, don't ask how) Much China-iana here. My father was a consul in China (Up to study, a long, low workroom overlooking woods) No typewriter here Absolutely no type- writer. Here's my copy of "Finnegans Wake." (Exhihits copy marked with hundreds of circles, references, nota- tions) Here are my copies of Lope de Vega. I've spent years and years reading Lope de Vega. And there's my bronze Noguchi bust. Of me. A wonderful piece, really a wonderful piece. I'm working on an opera, I'm working on my plays, I talk on "Finnegans Wake" to the Romance Club here, I listen to concerts in the Sprague Memorial Hall, I travel, and I never go to a first night of one of my pL1YS. Never Isabel goes She suffers for me. Time for your train, time for your train! Back to New Haven by Thunderbird! I n Reply A CORRESPONDENT of ours who works for an insurance company in Karachi has forwarded to us tht: followIng copy of a letter hIS outfit re- ceived in response to an inquiry about a gentleman whom it proposed to bond: Re Fidelity Guarantee Insurance of Hashmat Yar Khan, Cashier. I am in receipt of your letter regarding the ante- cedents of Mr Hashmat Yar Khan. In this connection I am to inform you that Mr. Hashmat Yar Khan has been known to me for the last ten years, and in my opinion he is a gentleman to be issued a Guarantee against.